My name is Duane Smith. I am a public speaking professor, and speech coach at Los Angeles Valley College. Not only do strong minority women make up the majority of our campus (60% female – 40% male), but I am blessed with not only a brilliant wife, Fleur, but four wonderful daughters, Sierra 6, Skylar 5, Savannah 3, and Scarlet 2! Women’s issues are of great importance to me.

During my undergraduate studies I was awarded a scholarship to Northern Arizona University for public speaking. While competing nationally and internationally for NAU, my two most successful speeches were focused on two of the greatest atrocities being faced by women still to this day. In 1994, while competing at the International Forensics Association (IFA) International Public Speaking Championship Tournament held in Munich Germany, I was awarded first place for persuasive speaking. I spoke about, “The Need to Officially Recognize Rape as a War Crime.” And in 1995, at the Interstate Oratory (U.S. National Championship Tournament for Persuasive Speaking), I placed 7th in the nation for a speech about a little known at the time disease called “HPV: Human Papillomavirus.” The speech was later published by the IFA.

Now as a father of four future women, I am even more vested in women’s issues, which is why your organization caught my attention.

I am a tenured, full time college professor. And I coach one of the most successful college speech teams in the United States. In 2008, my national championship claiming team’s roster mirrored the school’s gender stats with 6 young women, and 4 young men. I am also the CEO and founder of Empowering Speech. Additionally, I have over a decade of experience teaching public speaking to English-as-a-second-language-speakers. My history, services, and testimonies can be viewed at empoweringspeech.com. I am always looking for new challenges and opportunities to serve where there is a need.

Duane Smith
empoweringspeech.com